


Double Feature

by girlinstory



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bisexual Richie Tozier, Gen, Hurt Richie Tozier, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:14:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21925009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlinstory/pseuds/girlinstory
Summary: Richie gets attacked by gay subtext, and Eddie whips out his second fanny pack.
Relationships: Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier, Bill Denbrough & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 89





	Double Feature

**Author's Note:**

> This is a tag for the scene in the book where Bill and Richie face the werewolf. If you haven't read the book or want a refresher, there is a breakdown of the scene here: 
> 
> https://not-effable.tumblr.com/post/189804548621/if-you-want-to-hear-about-about-richie-toziers

Beverly fed her father's tape measure down the bathroom sink. When she pulled it out, all nine feet were covered in rust and sewage. The first six feet were also covered in blood. She guilty for making a mess right after the boys had helped her clean up, Eddie with an aspirator in his mouth the whole time, like it was a gas mask.

She caught up with them at the end of the street.

"...will know what to do," Eddie was saying.

"Are you talking about Bill?" she asked, a little breathless. Ben and Stan turned to look at her, then back at Eddie.

"Yeah." Eddie blushed. "Bill."

"Let's go," said Beverly. "Let's go tell him now."

She started to walk away, but Stan gently steered her in the other direction. Bev followed him the rest of the way to Bill's house, Ben behind her, and Eddie behind him.

There were no cars in the driveway. The front door was locked, an occurrence that was becoming more common in Derry as children continued to disappear. Stan raised his hand, but the door swung open before he could knock.

Bill was covered in dirt or— It was coal dust. It was all over his face, except for a few steaks of clean skin that couldn't be from anything other than tears.

"Eh- Eh- Eddie," said Bill. "Th- Thank— Do you have yuh- you're fanny pack?"

"Which one?" asked Stan, but his face was serious as he put a hand on Bill's shoulder.

"Ruh- Ruh- Richie—"

"Richie's here?" asked Bev. Bowers and his cronies must have come after Richie in retaliation for the fight behind the Aladdin. Bill must have been caught in the crossfire. That explained everything except the soot.

"You know Richie?" asked Eddie. He'd been frowning at the soot, but he was frowning at Bev now.

She didn't dare call it a date, not even as a joke. Richie had laughed along, albeit a little uncomfortably. He seemed to like having a guy and girl on each arm.

"He took me and Bev to the movies," said Ben. Bev was glad he spoke up, if only because Eddie turned his glare on Ben. He narrowed his eyes, like a sniper adjusting his scope.

Ben was oblivious. "It was a horror double feature. The best one was about a teenage werewolf." He was also oblivious to Bill's flinch. "He paid for our tickets, and when Bowers cornered us outside the theater, Richie fought 'em off, just like Michael Landon fought Tony Marshall in the movie. Richie's great."

"Richie's huh- hurt," said Bill.

He turned around and led them into the house. It appeared empty, but when Bill opened a door halfway down the hall, there was Richie.

He was lying on the bathroom floor, back propped against a claw-foot tub. He was covered in soot, just like Bill, but he was also covered in blood. It seemed to be coming from his head. It was hard to tell how much of it was soaked into his dark curls.

Eddie dropped to his knees, unphased compared to his treatment of the blood in Bev's bathroom. He cupped Richie's lax face with his fingers and tilted it forward. His other hand came up to push back Richie's hair. Close to the hairline, there was a big bump with a gash going through it, like a hardboiled egg after the first crack.

"Why didn't you take him to a hospital?"

"I- I- I tried," said Bill. "He wakes up and starts biting."

Eddie pulled his hand back.

"He say huh- his parents will kill huh- him."

"They wouldn't replace his glasses the last time he broke them," Eddie said, almost to himself. "Are they—"

"I've got them here." Bill patted his pocket. "I- I was trying to stah- stah- stah- stop the bleeding."

There were a few rags on the floor, dotted with blood. Just like the ones Bev had spent Stan's nickels to clean at the laundromat. She felt like her mother. "I just cleaned up this mess."

"You did good, Big Bill," said Eddie. "Head wounds bleed a lot. He'll be fine."

Eddie reached out a hand and patted Richie's cheek. Richie's eyes moved under the thin lids and he mumbled something that sounded a lot like, "Boyo."

"Wake up," said Eddie. "You gotta' wake up now."

Richie's eyes went wide, wider than normal.

"Breathe, Richie. With me, like when I have an asthma attack."

"Eds?" Richie blinked at him stupidly. Bev didn't think it had anything to do with the head wound.

"Don't call me that," said Eddie. "You're not breathing if you're talking."

"You have to breathe to—"

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

Richie squinted. "I don't know. I'm not wearing my glasses. But I can guess."

Bill slid Richie's glasses out of his pocket. There was tape across the bridge, but they didn't appear any more broken than the last time Bev saw them. Richie put on the glasses, and Eddie held up his middle finger again.

"Still don't know."

"I think you have a concussion," said Eddie. "If you go to sleep you'll die, so you'd better stay awake."

"Besides," said Stan. "You have to tell us what happened."

"Bill can tell you," said Richie.

"No," said Stan, "He can't. It'll take him two hours, and I think we need to teach Bowers a lesson before he forgets what it's about."

"Not Bowers," said Richie. "We went to the Neibolt house to look for Eddie's leper."

Eddie went tense, and he didn't relax, even when Richie said, "S'not what got me. I would've told you."

"What did get you?" he asked.

"Werewolf."

"A tuh- tuh- teenage werewolf," said Bill.

"I'm sorry," said Richie, sudden and loud, even for him. "It was my fault. The pom poms on its jacket— The leper and the werewolf are the same. The mummy too. They're all the clown. It looks like what we're scared of, and I was scared of the werewolf, so it—"

"Shut up," said Eddie, even though Richie was apologizing to Bill.

"Eddie's right," said Bill. "I mean, maybe that's wuh- wuh- why it looked like that, but if you hadn't been there, it probably would have looked like Guh- Guh- Georgie, and I don't think I cuh- cuh- could shoot Georgie. If anything, it's my fault for druh- dragging you along when you didn't even wanna' gu- go. I could have gotten you kuh- kuh- killed."

Richie shook his head. He was holding a hand to his head. Not the wound, but his temples.

"Headache?" asked Eddie. Richie just nodded. "Voices too loud?"

Another nod.

"Well, now you know how we always feel." Eddie took a bottle out of his second fannypack and poured three pills into Richie's hand. It wasn't the bottle of aspirin he'd passed around at Bev's house.

"Acetaminophen for concussions," he explained, catching Bev's watchful eyes. He was still glaring, but now it was at Bill. "They don't make you bleed so bad."

Richie's head hung forward, nearly hiding the slide of his throat as he dry swallowed the pills. Eddie shuffled a little closer, until Richie's forehead was resting on his shoulder. Bill stood up and left the bathroom. Ben and Stan followed suit, but Bev hesitated.

"Eddie, I—"

"I'm glad you guys went to the movies with him," said Eddie, softly. Richie wasn't asleep, but he didn't seem very aware of any surroundings beyond the crook of Eddie's neck. "I had to go visit my aunts in Bangor, and he— I'm glad he had someone to go with."

"Me too," said Bev. "He's a good friend."

"The best," said Eddie. He looked close to tears, but then his watery eyes hardened to ice, and he glared at her again. "Don't you dare tell him I said that."


End file.
